Back to Shameless by Grace McClure

A leap, a fractured ankle, and a whole new perspective. One university exchange to rule them all. "When I was in my final year of University, I signed up for an exchange. I mostly applied to feel like I’d done something other than get drunk on homemade wine and call-in orders of family-sized poutine. Having never left the continent, I put my preferred destinations as either Ireland or England...

"It looked like shit, but I knew I had to stand by it." When we moved into our first house, I threw out our frat boy futon. The time had come to invest in an “I’m a mortgaged adult” sofa. Skipping over Ikea’s middle ground, I set my sights on a down-filled velvet sectional with a price to match.  For weeks, I loitered on Article’s website with Royal Velvet propped in my shopping cart. Ho...

Generosity comes in all shapes and sizes (but none are found in the discount bin). As someone in recovery, I can sniff out a fellow cheap person from a mile away. I get a shiver when I watch a stranger perform their best “purse dig looking for a credit card” at bill time.  While I’ve learned to override being cheap, I still have my eye on the prize. A restaurant menu with a $2 cost-savings gap? I’...

(I know—it's not what we want to hear.) In the summer, I wrote about going for a run, jogging for three minutes then walking to get gelato instead. Sometimes doing the wrong thing is the right thing. We can only work our day jobs, take on the side hustles, and be “good” for so long. Then, we must rebel. This could be getting the ice cream. Uncorking the magnum of wine. Or spending the day on t...

Will the real procrastinators please stand up? After being lost in a sea of nothingness, you come up for air. A swell of disorientation washes over you. How long were you out for? Back to Shameless is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. You stare at the Google Doc on your laptop. The cursor pulsates against the blan...

Your annual—nay, half-decade—reminder to make friends with fear. "Whenever someone turns 35, I impulsively think, “35, still alive!”. It’s odd. It’s spectrumy. And yes, I have slogans for most ages. Exhibit: “32, chu brand new!” “33, lots to see!”. “34, so much more!”. Without surprise, little thought goes into these. I just open my enamelled trap and whatever comes out is it. Then, while mow...

Buying. Selling. Losing. Winning. "This year, we accidentally sold two houses on the same day. Originally, we tried to sell just our cottage with a realtor who dedicated herself to a long con. For weeks, she pretended to hire a drone photographer who continuously cancelled due to “high winds”. Needless to say, like the lack of aerial footage, no deals materialized. Eventually, we took it off...

A story of grit. "Five years ago, I chipped my tooth on a Twizzler. It was Halloween, and like Valentine’s and Easter, I was on an all-you-can-eat bender. Putting in late-night reps on a pack of licorice, I stretch each piece between my front teeth, gnawing off chunk after chunk. Everything is routine until I feel something inside my strawberry paste. It’s grainy. It’s rough. It doesn’t belon...

When naiveté is forced to transform into bravery. "About a decade ago, I sat across from my sister at a brewery in Montreal. I was in my early twenties and working for my first start-up. Everything was new and exciting. I felt like I’d won the new grad lotto. My sister, who was a couple of years ahead, didn’t share the same enthusiasm. Over hipster-priced pints, she explained that most people...

And there's a crisp, shart pain magic in the air. "New Year’s Eve almost always falls flat. Or at the very least, it falls short of any great expectations. It’s little more than a hype holiday where we’re encouraged to wear sequins (fine), drink too much (if you insist), and then wait for Uber surge pricing to fall (the worst).  There's a strange pressure around New Year’s—even if we...

A celebration of a new life. "Currently, we live in a town of 13,000 people. While we’ve had our “country” house for almost two years, we never called it home. It’s always been a mattress-on-the-floor, “don’t drink the tap water” construction site. This was until we sold Toronto and found ourselves full-time residents of Beamsville, Ontario. Admittedly, “Beamsville” sounds like the name of th...

A snapshot of modern day humbling. "We’ve all had a drive-by mirror moment that makes us gasp in horror. A napkin dispenser tooth check that forces us to toss our lipstick. An oily puddle that shortens, widens, and humbles. But nothing compares to a merciless photo..." To read in full, visit: backtoshameless.com